CONCISELY STATED, DIVERSIFIED, EPIGRAMMATIC THESES

"It is growing clearer that many doctrines of men are not lasting; only the Word of God is eternal."

"The world will allow the mere statement of any doctrine, provided no attempt be made to put it into practice. It is only when faith begins to produce works that the Christian is confronted with bitter opposition."

When someone crosses our path with the actual possession of the religious goods we claim, theoretically, to have, there is a stir.

Slavish attachment to the old traditions prior to the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, had destroyed freedom of thought, and a similar attachment to our new traditions, subsequent to the Reformation, has had a similar effect.

Clear providences of God may lead an individual, or a company of individuals, to change their church relations, but be it ever remembered that transferred people with new religious labels are not always transformed people. The new label does not break the old bondage; another place will not equal Jesus' place; the new drilling ground and the new marching rules will not answer for the new life in Christ Jesus!

"The test of any doctrine is whether it can be translated into Life; whether it makes any difference with the people who accept it." The doctrine expressed in all creeds must stand or fall by this test -- VERIFICATION!

"It is one thing to believe oneself orthodox and quite another to have that orthodoxy so definitely defined as to be compelled, whether or no, to look it squarely in the face and own or disown it."

"We must not content ourselves with the notions that people have about God, for they are often wide of the mark, but we must diligently seek to know what He has disclosed regarding Himself. We want to come to the very fountain -- the revelation which the Lord has given of Himself in His Word."

What we stand for so earnestly, the men of the Sixteenth Century died to rebuke as false -- loyalty to the Church, for example, as a substitute for loyalty to Christ; reception into the organization in place of receiving Christ. This is the peril of all church organizations, great and small, Roman, Protestant and Independent, intervening themselves between the soul and Christ as mediators, when there is only One Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus!

"Christianity consists not in dead doctrines and pompous ceremonies, but in a Person, in a living faith and a holy life."

To have favor with God we need not always fit into the theological moulds of men.

The Sermon on the Mount is more vital than all the human deductions from it.

Knowledge of prophecy is not a condition of salvation; (although it is "a more sure word of prophecy, to which we do well to take heed") yet the imminency of much of its most startling fulfillment may be a strong incentive to seek salvation and sanctification.

There is no saving grace by intellectual belief in, and advocacy of the so-called fundamental doctrines of the Bible. Salvation is not by orthodoxy or right opinion. Merely to defend the Bible's fundamental doctrines, or what is called battling for the Bible against the encroachments of destructive criticism, evolution, new theology, etc., is not the same as preaching the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. It is the latter course that brings the fire of persecution and not the former.

Satan is willing that we defend the Bible ever so learnedly and eloquently, but he roars when it is so preached that individuals are transformed by its power from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Multitudes who sit entranced under its eloquent defense, will turn away from it with burning indignation when the Word of God is preached in the penetrative power of the Spirit.

It is no more essential to salvation to make a pilgrimage to a modern Camp-Meeting than to Ancient Rome; albeit God does specially manifest His saving power in many of them.

Right thinking, in New Thought, apart from right being, through the Spirit's supernatural transforming power, is a species of attempted salvation by works (the work of concentration in thinking) and therefore worthless.

Right natural generation in Eugenics, does not eliminate the necessity of regeneration, effected by the birth of the Spirit.

The denial of sin in Christian Science is not the same as deliverance from it through faith in the blood of Christ, without which shedding there is no remission of sin.

Sleeping with a loaded revolver under our pillows is not identical with the Psalmist's trust in Jehovah "I will both lay me down in peace and sleep; for thou, God, only makest me to dwell in safety." And readiness to shoot the prowler after our goods is not the same as taking joyfully the spoiling of our goods; and preparation to take life in a defending of life or gold, is not the same as placing our times in His hands, and valuing a man's life as more precious than gold.

The Tree of Knowledge is not synonymous with The Tree of Life. Of one Jehovah said that his wisdom and knowledge had perverted him; and of another that his deceived heart had led him astray.

Atmospheres created by the psychology of the opening song service are in no sense essential to the power and effectiveness of the Word of God, which stands on its own merit. The song service may be purely soulish; the Word of God is Spirit and Life.

A man's attitude to an organized church and its activities, by no means is synonymous with his standing with God, either if without or within its pale. Luther said if a man would be saved he must hunt the church, by which he did not mean the organization, but the organism, the true, living, Church, the company of faithful brethren in whom dwells the living faith. Hence, Christian laymen are not obligated of God to continue tribute to men or systems that have lost the heavenly vision, only as they may be led of God to endure for the elects' sake, or to sustain those to whom God shall grant repentance.

No tribunal on earth has the right to call a man on the carpet or to task for preaching the pure Word of God in the power and demonstration of the Spirit.

We need to contend for liberty from all modern assumptions of man to infallibility!

The truth of God has always won its most striking victories amid the most bitter antagonism and opposition-progress by antagonism!

Men need not so much the call to "life service" as need the fitness for it! The fitness includes the they call; the call does not include the fitness -- "Tarry, till ye be endued with power, " is sadly needed as an admonition today. The Divine Guiding Hand is more essential to successful life service than twenty guiding principles to it, such as maintaining loyalty, constant study, firm decision, follow duty, measure your ability by the demand of the field, survey possible spheres of life service, discover your talents, counsel, secure highest education, and finally, careful deliberation in the supreme decision, all of which circumlocution is far from Divine Guidance "In all thy ways acknowledge Him and HE shall direct thy paths." "HE will guide you into all truth."

God does not require our reverence for institutions from which His glory has departed, nor our tribute to leaders who have lost their heavenly vision. The child of God is not under obligation to disburse his benevolence in channels which will not yield real fruit unto God. When the moral obligation assumed in acceptance of means sacred to God, ceases, he must cast about him for a more profitable sphere of investment, and this applied to all churches alike, great and small, so that it becomes an individual matter with the God-anointed, individual bearer of fruit, to discriminate between the support of the ecclesiastical machinery and the servant of God; the activities of the organization, and the work of the true Church.

Finney tells of a company of earnest Christians in England who were disappointed in their pastor, the work of God not moving forward under his ministry and no souls being saved. They waited on him and asked him for a reason for the fruitlessness. Assuming great indignation, he replied that the was not a God that he could convert souls. And they replied that whether he was a God or no, souls must be won, and they dismissed him and a man called of God was sent to them, under whom the work of soul-saving moved forward. Under vigorous procedure like this, many of our modern preachers would tarry for a baptism of power or hunt other work.

God deliver us from the cowardice of Lefevre who entered the threshold of the Reformation Era, felt its power and call, but when possible martyrdom loomed up before:him, turned his back upon the heavenly vision, saving his life but dying in great remorse. Save us from the time-serving Erasmus who tried to please both the Reform and the Roman parties, but who died despised and rejected by both!

"Best of all God is with us!" said dying Wesley. To place those words on the corner stone of a beautiful white granite church is not the same as having the conscious manifested presence of God in the midst, which caused Wesley to speak them! To have the words without their content is to imitate the Pharisees in garnishing the sepulchres of the righteous while rejecting that which made them great.

David, the man of blood, was not permitted to build the temple of the Lord in Old Testament times. The man of blood cannot build the spiritual temple of the Lord unless he repent, the spirit of war and the spirit of Christ being antagonistic. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through the Spirit, and the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God.

Christian fellowship is essential as we are commanded not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but we should not seek to bind men to a religions society, alliance, movement, or doctrine, but to Christ. "O, Israel, in ME IS THINE HELP, " wrote the prophet, and the apostles commended their converts to the Lord on Whom they believed!

Cowardice is an act of treachery to Christi God cannot have his work manifested by cowards. Men of God alone can conduct a work of God! A mild, conciliatory spirit on lesser points, and a firm unyielding spirit in essential matter of faith, is needed.

The history of all great revivals shows that their chief human instruments never received great monetary compensation. Finney, the great evangelist (having as many as five hundred thousand converts in one year, with a record of eighty-five percent stability) never received over six hundred dollars annually, and this was not raised in the meetings but given by a friend. The sense of the awful presence of God was so deep in his meetings that money was forgotten. Once Finney was in such straightened circumstances that he was compelled to sell his cow in order to live. What an amazing contrast is this with the professional, sensational, soft-pedal, surface revivals of our day and the enormous remuneration their manipulators get from their dupes. The purer the work of God the less is apt to be its monetary reward! There were no collections in the Welsh Revival!!

Can our present effete Christianity be any kin to the martyr church with its indomitable constancy and calm witnessing for Christ, even unto blood and death? Their prisons were illumined by Christ's presence until they shone like palaces; we have palaces in which to worship, yet often shun them as though they were foul dungeons, even though today the profession of Christianity is popular. With them it was regarded as criminal, yet were they ever ready to die for Christ. When led to Rome in chains as captives, they were more than conquerors in Christ, marching in triumphal procession to CORONATION rather than to death! How much martyr blood could we find for Christ today? Things which we hold, sentimentally, as valuable to our profession of Christianity, the Reformation martyrs died to rebuke as false!

A startling test of the source of a man's commission to preach, is in the degree of his acceptance or rejection by the world, or in his popularity with, or ignoring by, a formal church. Referring primarily to the Anti-Christ, and the Jews acceptance of him, the Word says -- "If one comes in his own name him ye will receive: I am come in my Father's name and ye receive me not." But how true of the attitude toward false leaders today!

Pageantry is a poor substitute for piety; and marching in religious, Sunday School or Revival parades, is not identical with walking circumspectly with God.

We may be so busy with church activities that we fail to do the work of the Master. The command is always to abound in the work of the Lord rather than the work of the church when its work is not identical with His work. There is no more saving merit in a modern church social program than in a festival of the Dark Ages; pure social life is not objected to when accompanied by deep spiritual life, but the substitution of the social for the spiritual.

We recognize that there are bodies of people in whom the power of God dwells more richly than in others, but this very strength may become a source of weakness and often the means of disintegration. Zwingle's strength was the source of his downfall his power of leadership led him to turn the people, against their consciences and the Word of God, to carnal conflict which, when the infatuation wore off after Zwingle's humiliating death, the Spirit of God convinced them of as sin and led them to deep contrition.

To be like quick-silver in our ability to fit into every mould of public opinion and sentiment; to be men-pleasers, is far from Paul's ambition to be well pleasing to Him.

Let us not protest with Erasmus that we will ever cling to the Roman See, right or wrong, or to any of the Protestant Sees, but ever cling to Jesus Christ.

Young Men's Christian Associations may be as corrupt as the ancient monasteries and the facts are with us that they are as corrupt often as the law will allow-drunken inmates, gambling, card-playing, crap-shooting booze, drinking, cigarette smoking, cursing, swearing and worse. The imperative need is a general housecleaning in all religious institutions.

In Christ there is perfect liberty from bondage to what the Hebrew calls the Haggadah, or the traditional or legendary -- the cliche or stereotyped form of expression. He gives us not weasel-words out of which the meaning and power have been sapped, but living words which are "quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword."

The increase of members in the modern church is not equivalent to the early increase of faith.

In proportion as the Spirit withdrew from the primitive churches, they put in His place, formal shows and ceremonies. What substitutes do we find today in Protestantism? Pageantry, Post-Millennial Shows, Tableaux, Religious Parades, Revival Parades, Sunday School parades, Musical Programs, Moving Pictures, Gymnasiums, Swimming Pools, Pool, Billiards and the Bowling Alley, and endless socials and banquets -- all the poorest caricatures of the life which is in Christ Jesus!

With fanaticism, formalism, Pharisaism, and the glad hand-shake on every side, it is hard to choose. The panacea for all the sad confusion of the hour is JESUS CHRIST! ENTHRONED WITHIN!!

The most prominent characteristics of the early Christians were resistance of Satan and separation from the world. They were "in the world but not of it." Bastard Christendom's most dominant note is conformity. The old-time pastor was apart from the world; the modern pastor must be adaptable. It has gone even further than that, as illustrated in the following story of the man who said to his wife when she informed him that the minister was coming for dinner -- "Well, that means that I must brush up on my best 'peppy' stories or he will think I'm not a regular fellow."

A Methodist Presiding Elder in Iowa said that nine-tenths of the preachers had their ears to the ground listening in on public sentiment and then, instead of preaching the Gospel of the grace of God, they pleased public opinion.

We revere the fathers, reformers and confessors and martyrs, and the more recent leaders, as Wesley, but we object to hearing more of what they said about the Word of God than what the Lord Jesus says, for as Kempis said, "His words outweigh in authority and power all the words of all holy men."

The Scriptures throw a flood of light on Mrs. Eddy's so-called 'Key to the Scriptures'. The Scriptures are not to be interpreted by the key but they do prove the Key (?) to be false. "Thy Word is Truth" and will quickly reveal the lie. The Word illumines and as the old lady put it, "makes even the Commentaries plain."

"Tradition, ancient and modern, embodies the vagaries of the wayward mind of man; the Bible, and the Bible only, contains and is the Word (and Mind) of God."

External Christianity, under ancient and modern Constantines, who would unite what God has separated, i.e. church and state, hides the real Gospel of God from men who profess to believe in it.

In the early days of departure from the simplicity of the Gospel under-bishops of large cities were carefully instructed to inculcate implicit obedience to the bishop instead of emphasizing the necessity of obedience to the true Bishop of the soul. That is also the practice of our day. To get anywhere it is said that you are to obey those having the rule over you. But this is true only "in the Lord." He puts down one and sets up another. When a modern bishop compels a preacher, on the Conference floor, to violate his conscience and stifle truth and deny God-given convictions, wherein, in the exercise of authority, is he less despotic than the tyrants the Reformers unseated from lordship over the Church? Or the preacher, in submitting, to the groveling, cowardly devotee of a false system?

The soul is not saved nor advanced in the spiritual life by the observance of a day, as in Adventism; neither is there any saving merit in the abstinence from meats and from marriage, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who know the truth.